


Heart Is a Resilient Little Thing

by hereweshallmeetagain



Category: Penelope (2006), Shame (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-26 12:50:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2652620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hereweshallmeetagain/pseuds/hereweshallmeetagain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On 2009, Johnny Martin moved to New York, work part-time as a stage hand and a barista in a coffee shop near 28th Street called Max’s Coffee Corner.<br/>One rainy day in 2011, Johnny saw a man walking past the coffee shop where he worked. He grabbed an umbrella from the back of the shop then went out and convinced the man to get back to the shop with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart Is a Resilient Little Thing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kageillusionz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kageillusionz/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [kageillusionz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kageillusionz/pseuds/kageillusionz) in the [mcfassy_autumn_extravaganza_2014](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/mcfassy_autumn_extravaganza_2014) collection. 



> I had three different ideas for this prompt. The original one was actually a big, long piece of with massive crossover with characters from various universes wandering in. To get coffee, tea or whatever. Then I realized that I’ll never be able to finish something that big. Well not this year, with RL being as it is. The second one was a supposed to be a oneshot. Start with change of plot, cutting off ten inches out of a mile that is the first idea and then invent another ten inches. Then two days after I come up with it, I don’t find it interesting anymore. Then the third came up. Light, fluffy, and presumably as long as the first. All three went to the attic.
> 
> I’m going with the Brandon/Johnny pairing here, because I really can’t do RPF for personal reasons. First of all, you don’t need too much knowledge of Penelope or Shame to read this. But Wikipedia would help, because this is not quite AU. More like continuation fic.
> 
> Last, Johnny and Brandon actually came from different eras (see that phone in Penelope’s house? I haven’t seen anyone apart from my mom & dad using that since the 90s). So, I did some Abracadabra, and now Johnny and Brandon are roughly the same age and lived in New York on 2011.
> 
> Finishing this on time was tough (so, I'm a few hours late). My muse was rather fixed at Leto II at the lately. The first half and all dialogues was done last week, but I only managed to finish the whole chapter on Sunday morning after two hours of writing and listening to Yiruma's _River Flows in You_. Johnny is a musician. He should have an OST and that song rather fits the mood.

One hour to the end of Johnny’s shift, the downpour showed no signs of stopping, as it had been for the last hour. The glass windows in the front let enough sunlight into the coffee shop. Combined with the light from the hanging lamp they fell upon the photographs framed on the red brick wall. One photo in particular, an image of trees on England in autumn was placed near the baked goods counter. It had been hanging on the shop for over two years, occasionally changing places with others, but never absent from the wall.

Johnny had just finished making the latte when the door to the restroom opened. Brandon emerged wearing the borrowed clothes. It was a good thing that everyone on weekday shift kept spare clothes in the shop. Johnny had borrowed Wade’s for Brandon. Wade was the only one with approximately the same built, tall and broad shoulders. He was a little bigger though, so the white shirt and the dark blue jeans were a little loose on Brandon.

“Have you got any plastic bags?” At Johnny’s questioned look, Brandon continued. “For my wet clothes.”

“Oh, sure. One moment.” Johnny went to the backroom and grabbed a plastic bag from the storage. “Here.” He gave it to Brandon, who received it gratefully and returned to the restroom.

Johnny returned to the counter, grab several packets of sugar and put them on a plate, then get Brandon’s mug of latte and the hot chocolate he made for himself. He set them on the table in front of the counter. He pulled a chair facing the wall, and was about to sit down when Brandon returned from the backroom.

“Have a seat.” He offered. Brandon took the seat in front of him. The plastic bag he placed on the seat on his right.

“I haven’t added any sugar to it.” He informed Brandon in an attempt to start conversation. The other man nodded. “Thanks.” He quietly added, then took one packet of sugar, tear off one corner and pour it into the mug. As he stirred the latte, he took look around the empty shop—empty except for them, it was.

Johnny could guess what he was thinking. Lacking any other light topic to talk about, and still lacking the courage to touch the one thing he actually wanted to talk about, he took the bait and start talking about the shop.

“It is normal for days like this. People are too lazy to go out when it’s raining this heavy. Usually my friend Annie and Kitty are here, but Annie had to go back early and Kitty had an exam.” He explained, then blowing at his mug of chocolate to cool it faster. “The owner refused to install Wi-Fi, so the manager said, hence the lack of people coming in with their gadgets. Our customers come mostly for the coffee and tea. Mostly regulars, but sometimes regulars brought their friends, and these friends come back once in a while.”

Brandon sipped his latte, while Johnny continued. “We have regulars who orders off the menu. Sometimes their orders can be very specific that we keep specific beans for them. You see the jars over there? The ones with sticky notes on it?” He pointed out to the shelf behind the counter. Brandon took one look at them. “That’s where we keep the special orders. The post it was to keep track on which customer who ordered them.”

Sitting face-to-face as they were, Johnny was able to see clearly not only the darkening bruise and scrapes on Brandon’s left cheek, but also the scrapes on his temple and right cheek. They were clean, so perhaps Brandon cleaned them when he changed clothes earlier. Still, ice would probably help.

“Do you want ice for that?” He gestured at the bruise.

Brandon touched the bruise on his right cheek and winced. “Yes, please. If you have any.”

“This is a coffee shop, _of course_ we have ice.”

He went to the counter, got some ice from the freezer and wrapped it in a tea towel. He went back to the table and offered the wrapped ice to Brandon, who received it with quiet thanks and then pressing it slowly to his bruised cheek.

Once again observing Brandon while sipping his chocolate, Johnny noticed that Brandon’s mug was half-empty. There was not much time left.

“This is going to sound strange. I hope you won’t be offended. I have no intention of interfering with your business, at all.” He took one look at Brandon. The other man met his eyes, the line of his shoulder tense.”

“You seem to have… quite a lot in mind at the moment, right?” Brandon didn’t say anything, but the pale white fingers clutching the coffee mug tightly spoke enough. He’d just have to say his piece before Brandon ran away.

“I’m not a psychologist or anything. Certainly no mind reader or something like that. I’m just… well, someone who’d been there I guess.”

“Now, I don’t know what problem you’re facing, and I’m not going to ask what it is either. But I can guess that it’s something big it overwhelms you. It’s choking and you don’t know what to do, much less how to fix it.” He hadn’t run away yet, there was still chance that he would listen.

“I know this is going to sound cliché, but, whatever your problem is, it’s not the end of the world. It feels like it now, but it’s not. You might not be able to solve it immediately, but once you can think about it clearly, you can try one way. If it still fails, try another way. Just, don’t give up, okay?”

“How would you know that?”

“Let’s just say I knew how it feels when to have your world nearly ended.”

“Not like mine.”

“Maybe not quite the same. I—There was a time when I was, no other word for it, a failure. I had no family, no friends, no one to care. I spent my time gambling. When I’m not, then I’m doing odd jobs here and there to get money for gambling. Or drinking. Six month more of that and I’d probably turned to crime.”

“Then I met this girl.” Her face came to mind. Remembering still hurts, after all these time. “She was special.”

“She was—there’s something that she really didn’t like about herself, a physical flaw one might say, and it kept her from being happy. I watched as she got over it, and she… she’s really happy. That sort of inspire me. I thought that I have to try to get up and fix the mess that was my life. So I did. And, she was there, you know. With me all the way until I stood on my feet again.” Absently, he slid his gaze along the wall, noting that several frames were askew.

“Four years ago, she died of cancer.”

  


* * *

  


“Once the queen’s dead, the king’s useless.” The girl behind the mirror said.

The boy in front of the mirror frowned. Genuine frown. For he did know the rules of chess and only play along as a novice to amuse her. “What’s that about?”

“I don’t know.” The girl answered easily. She paused, thinking. “Maybe he’s too depressed to fight. He really loved her, you know.”

The boy pondered at that for a moment, the smiled lightly at the romanticism of the reason offered. “Yeah, I can see that.”

  


* * *

  


_“Four years ago, she died of cancer.”_

“I lost everything that matters in the world. It’s the emptiness all over again. Worse than ever. I didn’t feel a thing. I don’t care about anything.” He was no longer looking at Brandon. His attention focused on remembering what it felt when he lost her, lost everything.

“It went for about a year, I think. Her family and friends finally had enough. They came to my flat, making a nuisance and tried to drag me out. I resisted, but they were more persistent. I tried to overdose on sleeping pill, they found out. Her mother screamed at me in the hospital, saying that her daughter wouldn’t want to see me ended up like that. I remembered yelling back at her that if she cared even a little for her daughter’s wish then she should’ve let me go to her. She broke down crying, saying that I’m the only thing of _hers_ that was left and she cannot lose me, too.” He wiped a tear that fell.

“It still hurts, even now. But I’m much better. Therapy helps. Leaving London helps. The city reminds me too much of her. Annie helps too, my friend, the one who works with me. She was her best friend. When I decided to leave England, she said that’s a good idea and when do we leave.”

“That’s what reminds me, when I see you walking down the street out there. The way you walk, like—I used to see it a lot, at the store windows, when I walk past them.”

“So, don’t give up, Brandon. Not yet. Even after you think you’d give your best try, do not give up.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm glad that was finished! Actually, I'm not quite satisfied with this yet. Nevermind, I'll revise this chapter again and edit it when I'm posting with chapter 2. Now that part will be harder because it will be from Brandon's POV. It would be like.. pulling rusted nails out of my heart, perhaps. 
> 
> You're welcome to chew of my grammar mistakes and spit it out. That's what the comment button is for, right? Also, beta offer is very much welcome.


End file.
